There
are so many alcohol problems that it is hard to say where
one should begin in dealing with them. Sometimes when I
am talking
to a young audiences, let's say a college audience or a
high school
audience, I write on a blackboard four headings. We have
no blackboard
but we can imagine one. The first heading says: "No
Drinking"; the
second one says :"Moderate Drinking"; the third
one says: "Excessive
Drinking"; and the fourth one says: "Alcoholic
Drinking."

I
think our concern today is with the fourth of those problems.
As you will see from looking at the programme, that is the
principle
object of our discussions. Perhaps you might say there isn't
any
problem involved under the heading "No Drinking"
or under the heading
"Truly Moderate Drinking" but even there are some
problems. You know,
if you are dealing with young people who want to decide
whether to
drink or not to drink, the question of total abstinence
is a problem
for them. And if you are dealing with somebody who is already
drinking and wants to restrict his drinking to truly moderate
drinking, it may be a real problem for him to find out what
moderate
drinking is.

The
question of excessive drinking, of course, is obviously
a
problem, because that is the problem of drunkenness itself.
But those
three, I think, are entirely different problems from the
subject which
is appointed for today's consideration. We are going to
discuss the
topic of alcoholism itself.

Saint
Benedict's Chapter Forty

But
before going on to that subject, I thought I might read
to
you what I consider a very sane, reasonable, Christian statement
dealing with the first three topics. This statement was
written a long
time ago, because it is a part of the Rule of Saint Benedict.
Saint
Benedict had a trait, you might call it a sort of sweet
reasonableness, in the way in which he handled practical
problems.
I am going to read you Chapter 40 from the Rule of Saint
Benedict,
which is entitled: "Of the Quantity of Drink."

He
says :"Everyone hath his proper gift from God, one
after this
manner and another after that. It is with some hesitation,
therefore, that we determine the measure of nourishment
for others.
However, making allowances for the weaknesses of the infirm,
we
think one hemina of wine a day is sufficient for each one."

Now,
I don't think they know exactly how much a hemina of wine
is and I have heard that there are two schools of thought
among
Benedictines on this point. But it is about the size of
a beer
bottle, perhaps a little more or a little less.

The
Rule continues: "But to whom God granteth the endurance
of
abstinence let them know that they will have their special
reward."

That
is point No. 1, no drinking, total abstinence. That is
what he is speaking of there.

"If
the circumstances of the place, or the work, or the
summer's heat should require more, let them depend on the
judgment
of the superior who must above all things see to it that
excess or
drunkenness do not creep in."

So
the saint sets forth a certain measure of moderation, while
mentioning total abstinence, moderate drinking and the question
of
drunkenness.

Then
he continues: "Although we read that wine is not at
all
proper for monks, yet because monks in our times cannot
be
persuaded of this, let us agree to this, at least, that
we do not
drink to satiety" - there is the problem of drunkenness
again - "but sparingly; because wine maketh even wise
men fall off. But
where the poverty of the place will not permit the aforesaid
measure to be had, but much less or none at all, let those
who
dwell there bless God and murmur not. This we charge above
all
things that they live without murmuring."

I
think that statement cannot be improved on as a brief
statement of the Catholic position on the use and abuse
of
alcoholic beverages.

But
you will note that the word alcoholism doesn't appear
there. And I think we must admit that nowadays we have a
new
concept of alcoholism, because we distinguish it from drunkenness.

ALCOHOLISM,
A SPECIAL, IMMENSE PROBLEM

We
don't think that alcoholism is just the same thing as
drunkenness. We consider it a special problem that has to
be
handled on a different basis from the problem of drunkenness.
The
reason why we are here today is to talk about this subject.

We
need to consider it because of the immensity of the problem
of alcoholism in our country. It is estimated that there
are about
four or five million alcoholics in the United States. That
is a
pretty large group of alcoholics. It is also estimated that
there
are perhaps 80 to 85 million people out of our population
who make
use of alcoholic beverages at least occasionally, people
who could
be called at least occasional drinkers. That includes everybody
that drinks alcoholic beverages at all.

At
that rate, if there are four or five million alcoholics
out
of the 80 to 85 million people who use alcoholic beverages,
this mean's that about one in twenty or one in fifteen who
drink get
into serious trouble. And, of course, in addition to the
people
that we classify as alcoholics, it has been estimated by
Jellinek
that we have perhaps three million excessive drinkers whose
problems are not severe enough yet to classify them as alcoholics,
although they are on the way. They will probably arrive
there if
they keep on drinking the way they are drinking. In addition
to
those millions of people, we have all the members of the
families
who are involved in this problem one way or the other.

So
I don't think it is necessary to stress the idea that this
is an immense problem. The only thing that suprises me is
that this
is an immense problem. The only thing that suprises me is
that we
are not as acutely aware of it as others are, nor as we
ought to
be. It seems to me that given the size of the problem, given
the
frequency with which priests are called upon to deal, in
their
parish work, with the alcoholics, with the excessive drinkers,
with
the members of their families, this Pastoral Institute is
definitely
needed. We hope to make a beginning today by saying something
about
these problems and the way of handling them. My share of
the task
is to talk about the clergy's role in alcohol problems.
I am going
to speak first about what we mean by alcoholism today and
then go
on from that to speak of some connected topics to show what
our
role as priests should be.

First
of all, what do we mean by alcoholism? I am afraid that
many of us have been misled by certain pictures of alcoholism
which
are not entirely accurate pictures, that are exaggerated
or
misleading in one way or another.

MISCONCEPTIONS
ABOUT ALCOHOLISM

For
instance, you sometimes hear a college boy talking about
the drinking that went on at the prom and saying that so-and-so
is
a real "alky," or "He is a real alcoholic.
He got tight as a drum
last night." That isn't alcoholism, of course; it is
simple
drunkenness.

I
was talking with a young doctor a couple of years ago and
he
mentioned alcoholism. He said: "Well, I have seen some
of them. I
have been working at the City Hospital." And he immediately
gave a
description of a "Skid Row" type of alcoholic.
To him, that was what
the word alcoholic meant, the sort of person that you meet
on Skid
Row, the poor fellow who asks you for a quarter.

That
is not a typical picture of alcoholism at all. Of those
four or five million in the United States who are alcoholics
not
ten per cent are on Skid Row. In fact the most recent studies
estimate that only about three per cent of the alcoholics
in the
United States are Skid Row alcoholics. The average alcoholic
doesn't conform to that picture at all. And one of the reasons
why
so many people are so unwilling to admit that they have
the problem
called alcoholism is that false picture of alcoholism, that
misleading stereotype they have in their minds. That is
one reason
why it is so hard for an alcoholic to recognize himself
as an
alcoholic. He thinks of alcoholism as the sort of thing
you see on
Skid Row. He says: "I am not like that at all; therefore
I haven't
got the problem."

There
is another misleading picture, too. I once sent to see an
elderly doctor a gentleman who, to my way of thinking, was
obviously
an alcoholic. When the doctor got through examining him
he said: "He
is drinking too much But I wouldn't call him an alcoholic."

I
said: "Why don't you consider him an alcoholic?"

He
said: I can't find anything wrong with him. There is no
cirrhosis; there isn't anything wrong with him but his drinking."

Now
you see, 50 years ago, even 25 years ago, in medical
schools, they didn't call a person an alcoholic unless as
a result
of his heavy and excessive drinking he had contracted some
definite
disease of a mental or physiological kind. A person was
not
considered an alcoholic unless his drinking was complicated
by one
of the so-called diseases of alcoholism.

Nowadays
we don't use that terminology. We speak of alcoholism
with complications, meaning the diseases of alcoholism.
So,
according to the terminology the doctor had learned in medical
school, the patient was not an alcoholic because he had
no definite
complications. But according to the terminology we use today,
the
man in this case was an alcoholic.

Another
misleading idea, I think, is this. I have heard priests
say of individuals whom I would consider alcoholics: "Well,
he isn't
an alcoholic; he goes on the wagon every Lent and doesn't
touch a
drop for six weeks." Of course, if you ask him when
the fellow
started drinking again, it always used to be high noon on
Holy
Saturday. But the idea behind this thinking is that a person
who is
able to abstain totally from alcohol for six weeks is not
an
alcoholic. That is not the test of alcoholism.

There
are thousands, thank God, there are hundreds of thousands
of alcoholics, recovered alcoholics, who don't drink at
all. They
are total abstainers for life. But they are still alcoholics.
The
reason we call them alcoholics is that if they started to
drink
again they would drink abnormally.

The
test of alcoholism is not the ability to be a total
abstainer from alcohol. Thousands and hundreds of thousands
of
alcoholics can do that. The test is whether or not a person
is able
to drink regularly with true moderation. A person who can
do that is
not an alcoholic.

Accordingly,
I think that some of these pictures have misled us
as to the meaning of what alcoholism is. Sometimes, too,
you read
sensational accounts in books or in magazines about alcoholism.
The
thing that is sensational is most interesting to the public.
It is
played up. But the public gets the idea that this exaggerated
case
is a typical picture of alcoholism.

As
a matter of fact, most alcoholics are not on Skid Row at
all. A very large number of them would never be suspected
of being
alcoholics except by those who are close to them in the
early stages
of alcoholism. The average alcoholic is still, working and
still
living at home in a family.

ALCOHOLISM
IS DRUNKENNESS PLUS

First
of all, I would like to say that alcoholism is not just
the same thing as drunkenness. Alcoholism is drunkenness
plus
something else, plus serious life problems and plus an inability
to
stop drinking without help.

I
don't want to give you the impression that I can define
alcoholism. Nobody can give an essential, intrinsic definition
of
alcoholism. You will find as many attempts at that as there
are
speakers in the field. But what I am trying to do is give
some sort
of a description of alcoholism which will help to distinguish
the
person who has this problem from the person who is merely
drinking
too much. Alcoholism includes drunkenness and something
else,
serious life problems and the inability to stop unaided.

THREE
CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS

In
other words, for practical purposes, in order to diagnose
or
make a practical decision whether this person should be
treated as
an alcoholic or not, I have often used these three traits.
First,
excessive drinking over a period of years, secondly, serious
life
problems as the result of drinking, and thirdly, the inability
to
stop drinking unless one gets help.

The
last trait indicates an element of compulsion in the
drinking. The inability to stop when a person seriously
tries to
stop indicates some degree of compulsion. The whole thing
is a
question of degree.

Nobody
can draw a sharp line between those who are alcoholics
and those who are not.

It
is easy to diagnose alcoholism? I think that if one were
to
try to diagnose alcoholism in a scientific sense, according
to some
theory of what constitutes alcoholism, it would be a very
difficult
thing to do. If an expert has some psychiatric or physiological
theory as to what is the true, deep cause of alcoholism
and wants to
define it in terms of such a theory, I think he will have
his hands
full because there will be disagreements immediately on
the question
of etiology. A definition should be clearer than the thing
defined.
Scientifically, therefore, and theoretically, it is hard
to
diagnose.

But
what about practically? Is it hard to diagnose alcoholism
from the practical standpoint of deciding whether this person
should
be treated as an alcoholic or not?

TRAIT
ONE: EXCESS

I
don't think it is hard for anybody except the alcoholic
himself. Take trait number one. It isn't difficult to point
out to
one's own satisfaction that this person has been drinking
excessively for years. Now I don't mean that he has been
getting
dead drunk every night. There are many alcoholics who rarely
get
dead drunk. There are many alcoholics who rarely, if ever,
get
theologically drunk, to use that somewhat odious expression.
There
are many alcoholics, who rarely, if ever, get so drunk that
the most
lenient moral theologian would have to agree that that kind
of
drunkenness (if deliberate) would be sinful. There are a
great many
alcoholics who don't drink that way at all. The kind of
excessive
drinking I have in mind may mean only that the person gets
tight
frequently and sometimes thoroughly and that's being going
on for
some years.

TRAIT
TWO: PROBLEMS

As
for trait number two, the serious life problems that I am
talking about range all the way from lack of family harmony
(that is
the way it often starts), through loss of health and loss
of jobs
and loss of faith and loss of moral values, all the way
down the
road, until the person is finally what the A.A.'s call a
real
low-bottom drunk.

Now
these life problems are not always apparent to outsiders.
Very often in the beginning only the family knows about
them. Very
often it is the priest, the pastor, the curate who knows
about it
before others do, because he hears about it from members
of the
family. Either the wife comes to talk about the husband's
drinking
or the husband comes to talk about the wife's drinking.
When the
situation is such that the wife feels that she has to ge
to the
priest for help, it is a fairly good indication that one
has an
alcoholic to deal with. Occasionally you run into the prudish
type
of person who just disapproves of any drinking and is very
frightened of drinking. She gets panicky and goes for help
when
there really isn't any problem. But I have met very few
of these
through the years in dealing with alcoholics and their families.

When
the members of the family come to complain about the
person's drinking, there is probably a serious problem there
already. Usually there is at least incipient alcoholism
in these
cases.

TRAIT
THREE: COMPULSION

Trait
number three is the element of compulsion in an
alcoholic's drinking. He is unable to stop drinking for
good even if
he wants to (in the great majority of cases) unless he gets
outside
help. The A.A.' s express this note of compulsion in their
First Step
when they say: "We were powerless over alcohol."
Just as there are
degrees of excess in the drinking and degrees of seriousness
in the
problems that result from it, so also there are degrees
of
compulsiveness. Compulsions operate with more or less frequency
and
with more or less force. The alcoholic's compulsion to drink
involves a peculiar fascinated way of thinking about the
next drink
which takes possession of his mind on certain occasions
- especially
after he has had a few drinks.

When
in the grip of this obsessive thinking he is unable to
consider reasonably and realistically any other alternatives.
At
meetings you hear the saying: "It isn't your drinking
that gets you
stinking; it's your stinking thinking that gets you drinking."
When
a person has good reason to stop and really wants to stop
and yet
falls again and again, we are justified in believing that
there is a
compulsive element in the drinking.

It
is not just weak will. Many of these persons are extremely
strong-willed persons. People do not go on damaging themselves
and
the ones they love most out of plain stubborness. That kind
of
behaviour is abnormal and pathological. The compulsion interferes
with the drinker's liberty to a greater or lesser extent.

With
these three traits in mind, then - excess, problems and
compulsion, I don't think it is so hard to make a practical
diagnosis of alcoholism in the great majority of cases.

SICKNESS
OR SIN?

One
of the questions asked most frequently by priests is this:
"Is alcoholism a sickness or is it a moral problem?"
That is a sort
of lawyer's question. You are asked to choose between the
two. Why
can't it be both. But there is a good deal of resistance
to the idea
that alcoholism is a sickness. I am going to talk about
that for a
moment.

I
think one of the reasons is that there is sometimes a certain
amount of exaggeration in speaking of alcoholism as a sickness.
You
sometimes hear it said that alcoholism is a sickness just
like
tuberculosis, just like cancer, or just like any other disease.
But
it is quite different. You and I know that it is different.

One
of the principle reasons why it is different is that
alcoholism involves human behaviour and misbehaviour, conduct
and
misconduct. The average alcoholic uses a kind of behaviour,
a kind
of conduct that just doesn't measure up to standards. It
doesn't
make much difference what the standards are you are talking
about.
It may be the standards of moral law; it may be the standards
of
civil law; it may be the standards of Emily Post - but he
doesn't
measure up. His conduct does not measure up. That involves
something
which the ordinary case of tuberculosis or the ordinary
case of
cancer does not involve.

Since
there are such obvious differences, I think it hurts the
cause - the cause of getting people to recognize alcoholism
as the
sickness it really is - to speak in an exaggerated way and
talk
about alcoholism as if it were just like cancer or just
like
tuberculosis.

EVADING
RESPONSIBILITY

I
think, too, that some people are a little afraid that if
the
alcoholic is told that he is sick, that it will be an excuse
for him
to evade his responsibility in the matter. Every once in
a while I
see a person who goes home drunk to his wife and says: "Don't
blame
me; I am a sick man. They told me down at the information
center
that alcoholism is a sickness. That's what's wrong with
me, so it is
not my fault if I keep on drinking."

Now
I say that I have seen that once or twice, perhaps a few
times, but very rarely. You know, the public has been bombarded
with
the idea that alcoholism is a sickness and that alcoholics
are sick
people. This is true. This is as it should be. And the alcoholics
read all this material in the magazines and in the newspapers,
too.
And when they read it they say: "That is a fact - alcoholism
is a
sickness - Joe So-and-So has that." They never think
that they have
it. They are never ready to think that they themselves are
the
people who have the sickness. The truth of the matter is,
that once
it is brought home to them at the information center or
elsewhere
that they do have a sickness called alcoholism, at the very
same
time they are taught that it is a sickness that they can
do
something about if they want to. They are not given an excuse
from
their responsibility. They are given an understanding of
what is
wrong and the assurance that they can get better if they
will assume
the responsibility of doing so.

The
people who inform the alcoholic in a helpful way about that
concept of sickness also inform him that he is able to do
something
about his sickness and how to do it. So, I think that there
is very
little of that escaping the responsibility merely because
of this
concept being brought forward. What the objection amount
to is that
it takes good tactics to tell the person that he is an alcoholic
in
such a way that he won't use it as an excuse to go on drinking.

My
experience is that it is extremely good tactics to tell
him
that he has developed the sickness of alcoholism if you
tell him at
the same time that he can do something about his sickness.
This
takes skill and tact.

WHY
CAN’T THEY LEARN?

But,
to my mind, the first question is not tactics but the
truth. Is it a sickness? The reason why I believe it is
a sickness
is this: Why can't alcoholics learn to drink moderately?
The fact is
that they can't. No alcoholic can ever learn to drink moderately,
'no
matter how long he has been abstinent, no matter how long
he has
been sober. If he starts drinking again, he is going to
drink
abnormally again.

Why
is that so, unless there is something inside him which
causes that? Maybe that something is physiological, maybe
psychological and maybe both. I imagine it is both. But
whatever it
is, that is the sickness of alcoholism that we are talking
about.
That is what most doctors and psychiatrists are talking
about when
they say alcoholism is a sickness. They may be referring
to some
other elements, too, but to my mind, that is the important
thing.

They
are not saying that in this man there are some clear-cut
physiological deficiencies which are not present in other
people. A
few may say that, but the one thing that all the experts
in the
field are agreed upon is that no alcoholic learns how to
drink
normally. And my question is, why is that true unless there
is
something wrong with him, something physiological or psychological
or both? That abnormal something is pathological and deserves
to be
called a sickness.

There
are other elements in the sickness, too, but I think it
will be sufficient for the moment, just to mention the fundamental
idea that the alcoholic cannot learn to drink normally.
Therefore
there is something wrong with him. He doesn't react the
way other
people do to moderate amounts of alcohol once he has become
an
alcoholic.

I
have often spoken of alcoholism as a triple sickness, a
sickness of the body and of the mind and of the soul. The
sickness
of the body I leave to the physiologist and the doctor and
the
sickness of the mind I leave to the psychologists and the
psychiatrists to describe. I think our business, as priests,
is with
the sickness of the soul and I am going to return to that
idea.

A
PARADOX

Now
here is a paradox. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous
vigorously claim that alcoholism is a sickness. But what
remedy do
they prescribe for the sickness? They prescribe the remedy
of the
Twelve Steps of the A.A. programme and those Twelve Steps
are
nothing but a programme of moral and spiritual regeneration.
They
say it is a sickness and they believe it is a sickness and
I do,
too, but when they come to make a prescription for the sickness,
their principal prescription is a spiritual prescription.
That is
the thing that works best, too. The members of A.A. who
are most
successful in maintaining solid, contented sobriety are
the ones who
take the Twelve Steps of the programme seriously and try
to live by
them.

On
the other hand, we have a certain number of lay therapists
(I don't know of any professional therapists) who say that
alcoholism is not a sickness; it is a vice. But these people
run
hospitals for alcoholics, excellent institutions, too, I
am sure.
They certainly don't run retreat houses for them; they run
sanatoria. That is another paradox. The explanation may
be that
alcoholism is a complicated condition which includes both
factors.
It is both a sickness and a moral problem.

The
two schools of thought are not too far apart in actual
practice. It seems to me that those who are most successful
in
dealing with alcoholism have to take into account that there
are
both spiritual or moral elements in this disease and also
psychological and physiological elements. That is why I
think it is
useful to call it a triple sickness of the body and of the
mind and
of the soul.

When
we call alcoholism a sickness, we are not forgetting the
moral implications. We are recognising at the same time
that there
are certain moral implications. I don't think that anybody
really
denies it, except an occasional, exaggerated, fanatical
statement
that there is no morality about this at all. "Alcoholism
is just a
sickness like any other." That kind of statement is
exaggerated and
not very meaningful, either.

Certainly
in Alcoholics Anonymous they do not deny
responsibility to the alcoholic. The members of A.A. in
their Twelve
Steps talk about turning their lives over to the will of
God; they
want to recognize when they are wrong and promptly admit
that they
are wrong and they want to make amends for the wrong they
have done
while they were drinking. All you have to do is read those
Twelve
Steps to see that there is not any attempt there to deny
or evade
the idea that there is responsibility on the part of the
alcoholic.

SICKNESS
OF THE SOUL

I
think that anybody who is familiar with alcoholics - and
certainly this is true of the recovered alcoholics that
I have known - knows that they are very ready to admit that
during the course of
their drinking they went downhill morally and spiritually.
Many
people who become alcoholics start drinking in a rather
normal way.
But they soon become aware that this particular type of
anesthesia
is delightful - in fact nothing, no other kind of anesthesia,
can
compare with it. Little by little, they find that they can
get over
the rough spots in life by making use of this delightful
anesthetic.
By continually avoiding hard realities they gradually undermine
their fibre of character. We have all seen many cases of
men and
women who little by little in the course of their drinking
lose all
those values that they learned as children from their mothers
and
their fathers and the Church and school, all those moral
values.
Finally they just give up. They lose their self-respect.
Some are
even ready to throw Almighty God out the window.

I
call that a sickness of the soul and I think it happens
often
enough to be called characteristic of alcoholism. But there
is one
thing we ought to remember as priests; if it is also a physiological
and psychological sickness, then the moral responsibility
of the
alcoholic for his drinking is diminished. It is considerably
diminished, to my mind. There are various questions connected
with
the moral responsibility of the alcoholic, for instance,
his
responsibility (1) for becoming an alcoholic (2) for his
drinking
after he becomes an alcoholic, (3) for the other things
he does
while drinking and (4) his responsibility to do something
about his
condition and get the help which is available nowadays.
Those
questions can all be discussed in great detail but I think
it can be
done in the moral theology classroom rather than on an occasion
like
this.

COMPULSION
DIMINISHES RESPONSIBILITY

The
only point I want to insist on is that there is a real
diminution of responsibility on the part of the alcoholic
for his
present drinking behaviour. When we deal with him, we ought
to help
him realize that he is not as guilty as he thinks he is.
A great many alcoholics are overburdened-with feelings of
guilt, exaggerated
feelings of guilt, and sometimes neurotic feelings of guilt.
It is
marvellous to see the relief that is brought to them. You
can see it
on their faces when it is explained to them that they have
a
sickness. You obviously do not say anything foolish to them
like:
“You are not a sinner; you are a sick man." Of
course they are
sinners. All of us are sinners. We can tell them that they
are
sinners and that our Lord will take away all their sins.
But tell
the: "You are not such a sinner as you think you are.
You are also a
sick man and the sickness you have developed is called alcoholism.
You can do something about that sickness and I will help
you to do
it."

THE
BODY OF THIS DEATH

Many
alcoholics illustrate very forcibly a condition of soul
which St. Paul describes in himself. Saint Paul said: "The
law as we
know is something spiritual; I am a thing of flesh and blood,
sold
into the slavery of sin. My own actions bewilder me; what
I do is
not what I wish to do but something which I hate.....Praiseworthy
intentions are always ready to hand but I cannot find my
way to the
performance of them; it is not the good my will prefers
but the evil
my will disapproves, that I find myself doing.....Inwardly,
I
applaud God's disposition but I observe another disposition
in my
lower self, which raises war against the disposition of
my
conscience and so I am handed over as a captive to that
disposition
toward sin which my lower self contains. Pitiable creature
that I
am, who is to set me free from a nature thus doomed to death?
Nothing else than the grace of God, through Jesus Christ,
Our Lord"
(cf. Rom. 7:15-25).

When
you are dealing with an alcoholic, if he has not yet
realized that his problem is really drink, you are going
to notice a
very peculiar blindness in him. It is characteristic of
alcoholics
that they do not recognise alcoholism as their problem.
I can't
emphasise too much the idea that the person who comes to
you
(perhaps because his wife sent him) doesn't think that drinking
is
his problem.

The
great majority of them don't believe that drinking is their
problem. They think it is something else. Oh, of course,
they got
drunk that one time but that was a wedding; and everyone
gets drunk
at a wedding. Or if it wasn't a wedding and happened at
ten o'clock
in the morning, he explains: "Oh, well, that was the
morning that my
wife started nagging me before I got out of the house to
go to work.
Anybody would get drunk in a situation like that."
There is always
some rationalisation while they continue to say (and to
believe): "I
can take it or leave it."

HELP
HIM TO SEE HIMSELF

Now
I can't exaggerate that point, the peculiar blindness that
goes with alcoholism. That blindness is something that has
to be
overcome. How? I don't think that anything but the grace
of Our
Lord, Jesus Christ, overcomes that kind of blindness and
our role as
priests is to bring that grace to the alcoholic. Our role
as
priests, of course, in general, is to bring the soul back
to God, to
bring him closer to God. But I think more particularly our
role in
the case of the alcoholic is to help to penetrate his blindness
with
regard to his own problem and his own self.

He
is spiritually sick and we want to bring him closer to God.
But how do we do it? We do it by helping him to recognise
that he is
an alcoholic. If it is true that alcoholism is a triple
sickness of
body, mind and soul, we aren't competent to handle the whole
thing.
We ought to realise our own limitations in this matter.
We ought to
realise that there is only so much that we can do, that
co-operation
is the key, that we must co-operate with others. Fortunately,
there
are other agencies available that will help us to deal with
the
alcoholics. We are going to hear about them.

REALISE
OUR LIMITATIONS

I
don't think any priest dealing with an alcoholic should
start
off with the idea: "Now here is a problem that I can
solve. I will
do it all by myself. I will just handle it with the spiritual
weapons that I have at my disposal." That is a mistake.
I think we
should recognise our own limitations and do the things that
we are
able to do. But we are in a particularly strategic position
to help
the alcoholic to recognise what is wrong with him. We are
in a
position to penetrate that blindness. We do it both by natural
means
and by supernatural means. We can help the alcoholic, in
other
words, to diagnose himself.

The
practical techniques of counselling are not the subject
matter of the present talk. I would merely call your attention
to
some of the literature available on the point, including
the
"Do-it-yourself kit" prepared by the Hornell (New
York) Committee on
alcoholism.

I
am not going into the details of the pastoral techniques
which can be employed. We are saving that for another session.
I
want to point out merely that one of the most important
things we
can do on the natural level is to help the alcoholic to
see himself
as he is. We are removing the obstacles to divine grace
when we help
the alcoholic see himself as he is. In addition, to that,
of courser
since co-operation is the key, we must co-operate with other
agencies. We we learn about some of these.

In
my opinion it is essential to co-operate with Alcoholics
Anonymous. I don't think that anything works as well. Alcoholics
Anonymous is available everywhere. It is there, it doesn't
cost
anything, and it works.

Most
of all, as priests, we are in a position to be channels,
as it were, of the grace of God. We prepare the ground for
the grace
of God.

An
alcoholic once told me of how he stopped drinking. He said
that he came home one day from work and was in the diningroom
when
heard his little daughter, twelve years old, talking with
his wife
in the kitchen. His daughter was crying and her mother asked:
"Why
are you crying?" She said: "The kids say that
Daddy is a drunk." He
said: "When I heard those words, it was as if a sword
went through
me." He never drank after that. He had a new vision
of himself in
that moment. The veil that covered his eyes was torn away.

DON’T
EXPECT MIRACLES

Now
I don't want to give you the idea that the process of
touching the heart is always as simple as that. That was
really
quite extraordinary. It is a miracle of grace when a person
has that
kind of experience and stops drinking all by himself. Ninety-nine
out of one hundred alcoholics need continuing help at the
natural
level in order to continue their good resolutions after
they see the
light about themselves.

Very
often the seeing of the light doesn't take the form of a
sudden psychological experience like that. Seeing the light
may come
only after a long, painful process of humiliation. The touching
of
the heart may take the form of a kick in the pants. In other
words:
"Whom He loves He chastises" (Prov. 3:12). But
usually, as we
priests don't have to do the chastising. We don't have to
take it
upon ourselves to play God and rearrange the lives of people.
We
don't have to lower the boom - and call it manipulating
the
environment. But we can do something to bring to them this
vision of
themselves. After all, what is grace but an illumination
of the mind
and an inspiration of the will? We can clear the ground,
by our
understanding, realistic help, for the entrance of God's
grace.

In
that example of the man who heard his little daughter
crying, I don't know how much of it was a natural psychological
experience and how much of it was the grace of God that
was touching
his heart. I suppose that the psychologist would prefer
a
psychological explanation. But I have been more and more
convinced
over the years that the alcoholic doesn't change unless
his heart is
touched somehow by the grace of God.

CO-OPERATION
IS THE KEY

So,
it is all important that we, as priests, should recognise
that our role is a co-operative one. We have to get the
alcoholic to
pray and we ourselves have to pray as if the whole thing
depended
upon the grace of God; and we have to act and get the alcoholic
to
act as if the whole thing depended upon himself, because
we don't
know where the natural leaves off and the supernatural begins.

One
of the reasons why A.A. has been so successful, I think,
is
that it has been able to appeal to the alcoholic at a level
he can
understand. It gets him on his knees. It actually succeeds
in
getting him on his knees asking for Almighty God's help.

Now
if we as priests will recognise our limitations and
recognise that we must co-operate with others when we do
have an
alcoholic to deal with, I think that we are going to make
great
progress.

So,
to summarise what I have been saying this morning, first
of
all, I wanted to separate the question of alcoholism from
those
other alcohol problems. Not that we are going to exclude
them from
our discussions. But I do think that alcoholism is our principal
concern today. Secondly, I wanted to give you some idea
of what
alcoholism is, according to the moderate conception of it.
Thirdly,
I wanted to indicate briefly that our role as priests is
a
co-operative one. We are trying to remove the obstacles
to grace. We
are trying to penetrate that blindness which is part of
the
alcoholic's sickness and help the grace of God to take effect
in his
heart.